


Video Games

by Poe



Series: Original Writing [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Fluff, Is this a love letter? Possibly, Like sometimes you just want to write wish-fulfilment fluff, Love Confessions, No gendered characters we die like, Other, POV Second Person, This is dumb and self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 12:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15773706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poe/pseuds/Poe
Summary: “Why do you like watching me so much?” You ask, pausing the game and twisting to where I’m sprawled on the sofa, eyes intent on the television. I groan, because it’s just gone eleven at night and I shouldn’t be expected to think.“I don’t know, I just like it,” I reply, and you look at me for a long moment, before cocking your head.“You’re so weird,” you say.“It’s been said,” I agree.





	Video Games

“Why do you like watching me so much?” You ask, pausing the game and twisting to where I’m sprawled on the sofa, eyes intent on the television. I groan, because it’s just gone eleven at night and I shouldn’t be expected to _think_.

“I don’t know, I just like it,” I reply, and you look at me for a long moment, before cocking your head.

“You’re so weird,” you say.

“It’s been said,” I agree, and slump down a little more into the blanket. “Unpause the game, I want to see what happens next.”

You don’t though. You turn so you’re facing me fully, game forgotten, frozen on the screen behind you.

“Is it because you like insulting me when I fall off things?” You ask. I smile, because, yes, partly.

“Not just that.”

“Then what? I’m dying to know. What’s so fascinating about watching me play video games?” You sound so damn eager to know, that it causes something in me to break a little.

“I just – I like how much you like them. I like watching you. Figure stuff out. Shoot bad guys. Falling off things. I like it all. Because you care about them and I – ” I stop myself. It’s a delicate line between friend and more-than-that and I don’t know how to tread it, how I’ve been treading it for so long.

“And what?” You smile, and I get lost in it, because of the way it lights up your face, and how your teeth are a little crooked and you look younger, less haunted by the world.

“And nothing. I was finished. I ran out of words,” I deflect.

“You’re a writer,” you say, “you never run out of words.” You argue back, and damn, isn’t that why I like you so much, that you don’t let me put myself down?

“And – maybe I like that you care. And that I care that you care. It’s more obvious when you’re playing, but, you care about things so much. And I love it, because it’s like, it’s just really lovely to see. Like, the most pure part of you. It’s just nice is all. Caring about things. It’s good.” I try to explain.

You drum your fingertips on the carpet for a moment, thinking. I wonder if I’ve made myself too obvious, broken the taboo.

“Why do you care about what I care about so much?” You ask, but I feel like you already know the answer.

I pause. I don’t know what to say that wouldn’t be a glaring beacon of all the feelings I have tucked away.

“I just said.” I say, as though that’s an answer.

“I know you though.” You say, and it’s true, you do. Every ugly piece of me, revealed over years. You do know me. “I know that’s not it.”

I don’t get a chance to reply before you carry on –

“I think, I think you like it for the same reason I like knowing you’re on that sofa behind me, giggling away and giving me shit when I suck at stuff. Like, maybe I care about you being there too. And when you pretend you’re not falling asleep. Maybe I like that you care enough to watch me play these dumb games when we’re both too tired to really think. Because, and I’m going to steal your words, because mine aren’t as good as yours – ” and I want to interrupt to correct you, but you keep going, “ _the most pure part of you_. That’s what you said, right? Well maybe, the purest part of me likes being in a room with you, and the rest of this,” and you wave your hand behind you at the screen, “maybe this is just an excuse to see that. To see the purest part of you.”

I take a moment. It feels like a confession, but I daren’t take it as one.

“You don’t notice, do you?” You say, breaking the silence. “You don’t notice how I watch you when you’re writing, when you’re reading, when you, dammit, when you’re trying to figure out the microwave instructions for a ready meal. Your nose scrunches up in the same way every time you concentrate. And I like that. I like that I get to notice that. That I get to see it. Because not everybody gets to. It feels like it’s just for me. Is that selfish? That I want to keep that part of you just to myself?”

“I don’t know,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say.

“I like that you care. I like that you’ve cared. For so long. About the big stuff and the little stuff. Because I care too. I don’t know, I think I always did.” You say, and huff out a breath. “God, it’s been years, and I can’t pinpoint the moment when you became something I cared about, some _one_ I cared about, but I do, and I wouldn’t change that for anything. So when you’re lying there, caring about me, and some pixels on a screen, and pretend lives, and made up stories, and a dumb purple dragon – god, you’re the reason I fall off things so often. Because just knowing you’re there, so close, and giggling away to yourself, I just want to stop and – just tell you. Everything.”

My mind races. I daren’t say a word, daren’t disrupt this. This is a confession after all.

“Say something, please. Don’t leave me hanging here,” you smile at me, but your mouth is nervous.

“I thought maybe it’d be enough to just watch you from afar,” I say, when I can comprehend words again properly. “I thought, I could – I could just, friends could be enough. I never expected more than that. Wanted it, certainly, but expected it? No. Never. And I was okay with that, sort of. But if – if you want, I mean, I guess. Maybe everything. Maybe I care about everything. Not just your dumb video games. I don’t know what to do now.”

“What are you comfortable with?” You ask, and I wonder if you’re the only person who would have ever thought to even ask.

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“Well, is there room on that sofa for two?” You ask. It’s a small sofa, but if we squished up, then yes, there would be, so I nod.

You get up from where you’re sitting, and you nudge me out of the way as though it’s a careless action, when it’s anything but. Soon you’ve managed to edge onto the sofa enough to curl up beside me, so that it feels like there’s a bubble around us, where all our breaths meet and mingle together. I bury my head to your chest and breathe in the smell of you.

“Okay?” You ask, and I can’t find the words to reply, so I just nod, moving against you.

And you settle a little more, an arm around my waist, the weight of it not as scary as I thought it would have been, but instead a steady security blanket against the world.

I can’t fall asleep if there’s someone else in the room. That’s the rule. But when I wake up in the morning, I haven’t moved, and neither have you, and your warmth has seeped into my bones, making them loose and lazy, and when I smile, my mouth moves against the fabric of your t-shirt, and you shift, just enough to kiss the top of my head.

“Okay,” I murmur, and I don’t know if you hear it, but you kiss the top of my head again, and I let my eyes drift closed, for a little while longer. _Okay_.

**Author's Note:**

> (don't tell the person this is about that this is about them.)  
> (my tumblr is @smallreprieves)  
> (i'm too old for crushes and yet.)


End file.
